Our TV camera found Lawrence in a store: "When you are using MDF boards, what is the best wood filler to use?"
Medium Density Fiberboard or MDF is that very dense compressed sawdust that is formed into panels and all kinds of molding. When filling nicks and dents in this material, it is importan...
2016 -- A US government study from the National Toxicology Program shows a definite link between cell phone radiation and the development of cancer but the press says there is still no problem.
After reading the government report myself (you can get the full report here and read it for yours...
Michael writes from St. Lazare, Quebec : We recently found a nasty surprise with our new house. The land has a high water table and as a result we have sump pump in the basement. The plumbing for this pump was hidden in the walls and ceiling of the basement. When our inspector inspected the home,...
Should you have a contract or not for every renovation? According to David Foster, author of the pamphlet Get It In Writing, except for the simplest of maintenance tasks, you need a contract, and for a lot of reasons that you may have never thought of.
If you would like to read the other two par...
This article deals with walls below grade, foundation walls. For insulating above grade cinder block walls see How do you Insulate a Brick and Block construction as well as Insulating an Above Grade Block Wall from the Inside.
The best way to prevent water from leaking into the basement is not ...
One of the most successful, but most expensive ways to keep leaves out of rain gutters is to place a solid shield over the top.
Using the principle of surface tension of water, the water flows over the shield and wraps around its outside curve. That curve extends out over the rain gutter itsel...
The basic message to remember is that Radon is a dangerous cancer causing gas and if found to exist in high concentrations in your house the problem can be solved permenantly and at a reasonable cost. So we don't want to ignore the possibility, we need to test every house in Canada.
7% of homes...
Overload protection
Fuses and circuit breakers will stop the electricity in a wire when the load is excessive or there is a short circuit. They prevent overheating of wires from too much electricity trying to flow through a wire that is not large enough to handle it.
Stray current protection
G...
Here are a few tips when it comes to re-wiring an old lamp.
Use the existing wire to pull the new wire through. You need to join them in a way that does not create a lump in the wire.
Avoiding a lump
On the old pair of wires, cut one wire shorter than the other and s...
Note 2014 :
As you read below you will find a detailed history of Vermiculite insulation and problems it had starting in 1920. Just recently I have become aware of houses built around or before 1920, yes 100 year old houses, where it was discovered that there was about 2 inches of Vermiculite u...
